Bluejays …
Category: Birds In Our Backyard
Red-breasted Nuthatch
I started feeding some birds by hand recently. It didn’t take long for the chicadees and red-breasted nuthatches to start coming around and eating out of my hand. And now when I walk out the door onto the porch they quickly fly in hoping to get some sunflower seeds. They aren’t shy anymore and often […]
Backyard Birds
I haven’t taken many photos lately, so thought I would show some birds that we are used to seeing almost on a daily basis.
Our Barred Owl Visits Again
Northern Shrike
We had a visitor to our bird feeder this afternoon – a northern shrike. This is the first time I’ve seen one here. They are a predatory bird, so it wasn’t surprising that we didn’t see our other little birds around that time.
Hummingbirds
Pileated Woodpecker
The pileated woodpecker is the largest woodpecker in Canada. It’s name “pileated” means “capped”. It is nearly the size of a crow. This one is a female. The males look similar except that they have a red stripe on the cheek, that looks a bit like a moustache. We often see the results of a […]
Brown Thrasher
At first, we thought that something was wrong with this bird. I believe it is a brown thrasher, and it was “anting”. The thrasher is lying on the ground, and letting ants climb on it. Apparently the ants crawl between its feathers and skin. It stretched out its wings, and acted like it was having […]
Trilliums and Hummingbirds
It’s a true sign of spring when the trilliums bloom, and the hummingbirds are back. My goal this summer is to get some more pictures of hummingbirds.
Dark-eyed Junco
We have had quite a few dark-eyed juncos in our backyard lately. They will come to the bird feeder but usually they scratch with their feet on the ground to get their food. They are very busy little birds, living up to the Spanish word “juncus” meaning “rush”. A nickname for the junco is “snowbird”. […]